Recently, there have been more and more need for increasing productivity without expanding the facility of production, and it is thus highly desired to provide an electronic component mounting apparatus with high operating efficiency and productivity per factory space.
Such conventional component mounting apparatuses for electronic devices include known component feeders such as disclosed in Japanese Published Examined Patent Application 3-221326. The disclosed component feeder is now explained by referring to FIG. 5.
As shown in FIG. 5, the component feeder 21 comprises a first feeder table 23 and a second feeder table 24, each table having a plurality of component supply units 22 aligned in parallel rows for storage of multiple electronic components and arranged movable independently in a direction of the parallel alignment. Desired ones of the components are fed from the first and the second feeder tables 23, 24 to a predetermined component feeding position. The components supplied by the component feeder 21 at the component feeding position are then mounted by a component mounting apparatus 20 on a board 28 positioned by an X-Y table 27 by way of the sucking action of nozzles 26 on a rotary head 25.
When one of the component supply units 22 on the first feeder table 23 is exhausted, its corresponding component supply unit 22 on the second feeder table 24 is advanced to the component feeding position for supplying supplements for the exhausted components. Accordingly, the feeding of the components can be continued without interruption while the first feeder table 22 is loaded again with new sets of the components, hence maintaining the efficiency of production.
However, the conventional apparatus has the first and the second feeder tables 23, 24 arranged in a row on a rail which is disposed in parallel to a direction P of conveying the board 28, thus requiring a considerably large area for installation of the component feeder 21 including two extra spaces S1 and S2 for stand-by of their respective tables 23 and 24 which are located on both sides of a main space F for feeding the components. When the component mounting apparatus 20 is installed across a production line, it will prevent the entire length of the production line from being minimized and will hardly contribute to an increase of the productivity per factory space.
It is an object of the present invention, in view of the foregoing aspects, to provide a method of and an apparatus for mounting components in at a smaller space and at a higher level of productivity.